In a world rife with challenges to righteousness, how do believers maintain their faith? Dr. J. Vernon McGee takes listeners on a journey back to Noah and Lot’s time, extracting lessons from their experiences living among wicked cultures. We additionally explore heartfelt letters from listeners in Bihar and how the airwaves reach where missionaries cannot. This episode serves as a reminder of the power of prayer, fortifying us with insights on remaining faithful as modern-day saints.
How firm a foundation, ye saints, of the Lord is laid for your faith!
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How does a godly man live in an ungodly culture? Well, you’ve likely asked that question when you witnessed the dark side of our world today. Welcome to Through the Bible. Our teacher Dr. J. Vernon McGee will continue our study in the book of 2 Peter. Our lesson is especially interesting as we travel back to the Old Testament and witness two godly men who lived in extremely wicked times. The first is Noah, and you remember how God dealt with that world. And then the second man is Lot, whose testimony reflects a great struggle in living a godly life. That’s all ahead in just a moment. But first, as you open your Bible to 2 Peter 2, Greg Harris and I have an update on the travels of the World Prayer Team.
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And this week, the World Prayer Team is traveling on our knees through southern Asia. And today we’re in the province of Bihar, which is a province in the northern part of India, praying for Through the Bible’s programs in Bhojpuri and Maithili.
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And chances are you don’t have a missionary that you’re supporting in your church that’s in that part of the world. That’s a good point, Steve. Because Operation World says that it’s long been known as the graveyard of missions. Bihar presents so many obstacles to evangelization. And besides deep poverty, which unfortunately plagues much of India, there’s widespread illiteracy. There’s lack of Bible resources in local languages. Through the Bible is in so many different languages, 34. 25 now in India. What’s our count? 27 in India, but going to more in those smaller languages. That’s right. That we’ve talked about in the past. And there’s, of course, strong spiritual opposition and persecution of religious minorities. Hinduism plays a big part in this part of the world. And also, fortunately, Christian radio plays an important role in these isolated places.
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And you make a good point, Steve. India would not allow you to go as a missionary. And so when they talk about the graveyard of missions, they’re even talking about Indian missionaries going into this part of the country. So here’s a great letter we got from our Buljpuri broadcast. I come from a non-Christian background. I live in a very rural area of Bihar, and I am an illiterate person. A friend is helping me send this letter. I mean, imagine, just stop and think about what it would take to find somebody to write a letter for you. That’s great. But I thank God for accepting me, forgiving my sins, and giving me eternal life through my Savior, Jesus Christ.
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I would say that program is teaching the gospel pretty well based on that response from the illiterate listener.
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He goes on, I am a regular listener of Jinagi Kira, which is my best approximation of the name of the program. It’s a high score from me. Thank you. Wow, that’s powerful. He goes on, Wow. That’s through the Bible. Sometimes it is very difficult to face people who oppose it, but I experience the protection of Jesus for me. Pray for my village, that people could know the truth and the truth will set them free from their sinful nature against God. Pray for me also when I share the gospel with other people.
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Again, this comes from a guy who cannot read and write. He understands the basics of the gospel. He preaches, and he asks for us to pray for his fellow neighbors. It’s powerful. That is just wonderful. Here’s one. This is from a Mathili listener. I was born into a family of a very low caste. Basically, if you’re in a low caste, you’re a second-class citizen at best. He continues, My father was an illiterate and hence wanted us all to study and see us have a better life, like all dads. He worked hard to see us through school, and my siblings and I made good students. We also received scholarships to go to good universities and landed good jobs with the government. We met a lot of haters along the way, especially from the high caste community. As we are from a lower caste, we’re not supposed to do well in life. Despite the success, my brother and I felt like something was still missing from our lives. Around this time, one of our relatives introduced us to your program and even gifted us a radio so we could listen. Hearing a Christian radio program was like having a church within our own home. We listened to it for three months straight and felt convinced in our hearts that Jesus was our God.” This relative who gave us the radio had a small prayer group that he led. We joined his fellowship. We also use your programs and listen to it together during these prayer meetings. We are grateful for the confidence that God’s Word gives us in life. We no longer feel part of a lower caste, as we know we are sons of the King. Greg, we’re almost out of time, so why don’t you pray for us?
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Father, our hearts are deeply moved by these testimonies of your power at work in dark places around the world. We thank you for the power of your word. Thank you for letting us be part of giving your word out to people, many of whom can’t even read, and yet you can reach them. And we thank you for that and rejoice in the work you’re doing in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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Now here’s Through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.
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Now, friends, we’re still in this very remarkable second chapter of 2 Peter, and I’m going to put in today at verse 5, and he’s giving us now in the section where we are three examples of the fact that God has in the past judged those that are false and phony and pseudo-religious people. and that he intends to do it in the future. And the basis is given here. We saw first that it was angels, for if God spared not the angels that sinned. We don’t know too much about that. We are told in Revelation that one of the most remarkable statements that is there is in chapter 12, verse 7, and it says there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. That’s Satan and the dragon fought and his angels. And back in the past, apparently, there was a rebellion against God led by a creature that we know today as Satan or the devil. He has many names. He’s the great deceiver. He is a liar from the beginning. And this creature rebelled against God And there followed him a great company of angels. Some of them, we discover, are with him today because Revelation says that those that are with him are to be cast down. Now, we also find that in the past, as we’re told here, that they have been incarcerated waiting for the time of judgment. The indictment is made against them In fact, God has declared them guilty, and they’re waiting for the judgment to come. They’re reserved under judgment. That speaks of the devil. Then the world is before us in the story of Noah. And verse 5 says, And he spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly. Now, when it speaks here of Noah the eighth person, it means Noah with seven others. He’s the eight. There were seven others that were saved. And that means Noah, his three sons, their wives, and Noah’s wife. So that you have eight that came through the flood. And in other words, God was judging the world in that day. He was a preacher, Noah was, a preacher of righteousness. Now, what does that mean? That means just simply this, that in a day when there was rebellion against God, in a day when the world had become lawless, and we’re told every thought and imagination of man’s heart were evil continually, God moved in in a judgment of the flood and brought an end to that pre-noatic world, that world that had become, with the exception of one man and his family, had become totally a godless world. And you could well see that it wouldn’t be long until the entire world would be in such a condition God would have to judge it And there would be salvation for no one after that. Actually, the judgment had in mind the future that was coming. And it reveals, actually, God’s care and respect for the human life that he had created. Now, right after the flood, in order to curtail lawlessness and crime, God gave to man this edict. He says, “…he that sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” This nonsense today of them using the argument against capital punishment and saying, “…it says thou shalt not murder.” Well, thou shall not murder has reference to an individual who harbors hatred in his heart and expressing his own fleshly feelings in anger or hatred, he slays someone else, another human being. Well, friends, that’s murder. But God has given to governments the authority to execute any man that takes another man’s life. And why? Will you listen to me for just a moment? You show respect for human life not by letting a criminal and a murderer off who destroys another human being, but you show respect and value for human life when you take the life of a murderer who fails to respect another human being, but he despises a human being by killing him for some selfish or sinful reason. And today, the pendulum of the clock is over on the side of the criminal today. The sympathy goes to him. Oh, he’s a human being. We don’t want to take his life. But he took somebody else’s life. And as a result, because we’ve had so many soft-hearted and soft-headed judges in this land today, and we’re so far from God and God’s word, that lawlessness became so bad in California that the majority of the people that voted back capital punishment, and it’s almost impossible to enforce it. Why? Because of godlessness. leaders that we have today. They know not God. They know not God’s plan and program, and they think if you be lenient on a criminal, and as a result, instead of putting criminals in prison, they are running the streets today, and the honest citizens are in prison in their own home. I was in a home the other day. It was back east. They had a half a dozen locked On one door, because they had been broken into and they have a lovely home there. There are half a dozen locks there. Why? Because of the fact that criminals and thieves and murderers are abroad today. Now, you don’t show respect for human life until they are locked up, my friends. That’s when the dignity is shown. Now, that was the days of Noah. And it’s that kind of a crowd that God destroyed and judged. You see, our nation has more than three strikes against us today. Not only, as I’ve said before, a nation of drunkards, alcoholics, But now murderers and thieves. Why? It’s alarming. Why? Well, we came through a period. I came up under this period. When I was in college, you didn’t teach morals because that’s not the purpose. You see, after all, if you just educate little Willie, he’s sort of like, you know, a cross between a piece of Dresden, China and a hothouse orchid. And you don’t want to apply the board of education to the seat of knowledge. Because if you do, you might ruin his little oomph. And he won’t be able to express himself like a little flower. Well, little Willie’s expressing himself today. And he’s a thief. He’s a murderer. He’s homosexual. And my friends, may I say to you, out of the human heart, the Lord Jesus said, proceed the ugliest, nastiest things that are imaginable. We need discipline. The unsaved world must have discipline from a government. If not, then that nation will be destroyed. That’s number two. Now, number three. and the turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly. Now, Sodom and Gomorrah illustrates the flesh. And the flesh, he’s going to talk about it in the remainder of this chapter, it’s an ugly thing. You and I have that old nature. And it is a nature that when it expresses itself, it expresses itself in that which is ugly, that which is wicked, that which is nasty. And today, you can’t make me believe that all of this that was turned up down at Houston of this group of homosexuals. And now we find that there is an organization of them throughout the country today. You can’t make me believe, friends, that by passing a law and making this lawful today, that somehow or another you’ve added dignity to it. God has said that when they go down that low, God gives them up. Now, that’s the Word of God, and you can take it or leave it, but that’s what the Word of God says today. And the very fact that we have been lenient and smile on that type of thing has caused it to increase and grow within our land. A couple wrote me the other day, and it’s the saddest letter, and it’s one of the types of letters I never read on radio. And they told me about they had found out their son had gone to college, Came back a homosexual. How tragic, how terrible it was. And what a heartbreak it was to this couple. Now, in the city of Sodom and Gomorrah, there lived a man. And we are going to find out about him here. And I want to read verse 7. “…and delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy manner of life of the wicked.” For that righteous man dwelling among them in seeing and hearing vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. Now, the word that interests me here, first of all, is that word vex. It doesn’t, in my thinking, convey what actually Peter’s really saying here. Now, the word in the Greek, and I’ve been referring to that in the epistle of Peter, because of the fact that this man, they say, does not use good Greek. And yet I’ve had to look up more words in the Greek that he’s used than even Paul the apostle. Now, the word here that he uses is katoponeo. And it means, according to Trench, to tire down with toil, to exhaust with labor. It means to afflict, to oppress with evil. Actually, to torment. You know that one of the methods that communism has used, and apparently it’s used now in many places, even in our own country, that you can break down an individual by constantly putting him under a bright light and constantly plaguing him with questions and pulling out his fingernails and doing all manner of torture to him. Well, this word has that in it. This man, Lot, in the city of Sodom, He vexed his soul. He was never happy there. He was tormented on the inside. It was torture for him to live in Sodom. And I never got that impression reading Genesis, by the way. And I’m glad Peter came along because I’m apt to say that I don’t think Lot was saved. And I’ll be honest with you, when I read the story back there of Lot, I come to the conclusion that when he went down to the city of Sodom, he went overboard and he lost most of his family and the two single daughters that he got out with him. When you read the story, you sort of wish they’d stayed back there in the city. But the interesting thing is that God got him out of the city of Sodom. And all of this is given to us, we’re told, as an example. Example of what? Well, first of all, may I say that I think that you and I are going to get two big surprises when we get to heaven. Number one will be there are going to be some people that are not there that we thought were going to make it. They won’t be there. They really weren’t genuine, but we thought they were. And then I think the biggest shock that we’re going to get is this. There are going to be some people there that we never even suspected were real born-again children of God down here. Now, the reason is they didn’t have very much of a testimony. I don’t think this man Lot had any testimony at all. You remember when the angels came and said that the city of Sodom and Gomorrah was going to be destroyed? Why, he went around to his sons-in-law and he said, say, I’ve got word from God. He’s going to destroy this city. He’s going to judge it. Let’s leave. They ridiculed him. Why, they said, we don’t believe you, old man. The kind of life you’ve been living down here doesn’t reveal to us that you have had very much faith and confidence in God. You see, he didn’t have any testimony at all. And I would have come to the conclusion, if I only had Genesis, I’d be willing to make this statement. Well, Lot didn’t make it. He was not a saved man. But I can’t say that because it says, and he delivered just Lot. Well, it doesn’t mean just Lot. Two of his daughters went with him and his wife went with him also. But she didn’t get too far away. and delivered just Lot, who was tormented with the filthy manner of life of the wicked. He didn’t go for that. He hated that. He was a just man. Now, that means he was justified before God because he trusted God as Abraham did. He and Abraham were related. This man, Lot, trusted God. But he didn’t lead a life like Abraham that was a testimony to the world. Lot stands on the page of Scripture as a saint of God who was justified because of his faith. But his life denied everything that he believed. And he never had a moment’s peace down here. Now, the interesting thing is that this man dwelling among them, seeing and hearing, Just think of the filth that that man had to listen to. Think of all of that. Very candidly, I do not believe a child of God can ever engage continually in filthy conversation. And filthy conversation will lead to filthy action, as we’ll see in this chapter as we move down through it. Now, there’s another lesson here, and it’s the greatest lesson of all. And it’s this. God said to this man, Lot, you’ll have to get out of the city. And he said, I can’t destroy. And back up yonder was a man by the name of Abraham who was not criticizing Lot. He was praying for him. And by the way, that’s a good lesson for many of us. I asked a man the other day, he’s a preacher and he’s been a friend of mine, but he criticizes everything and everybody today. And he criticized an outstanding Bible teacher today, one that I have respect for and know that God has mightily used him. And this man is criticizing him. And I said to him, looking him right straight in the eye, I said, have you ever prayed for him? And he turned red and he said he hadn’t. Well, I said, instead of criticizing him, why don’t you pray for him? Pray for him if you think he’s wrong. Now, Abraham, you remember, prayed for the city of Sodom. Oh, God, if there are 50 righteous down there. And he wanted his nephew to be spared. And he didn’t think he would be because he stopped at 10. He was afraid that Lot was not really a child of God. But he was. He was. And God got him out. God says it can’t destroy the city till you get out. And Miss Lott went with him. Now, she turned and looked back, turned to a pillar of salt. Now, somebody says, that sounds strange, just turning and looking back. Well, my friend, it’s what turning and looking back mean. Why did she look back? Because she might have walked out of Sodom, but she left her heart back in Sodom. Because I tell you, she was intertwined in everything that took place in that time. She belonged to the country club, the Shakespeare club, and every other kind of club. The bridge club. And they were having a meeting that afternoon anyway, and she wanted to go. And I think she plagued a lot and said, why do we have to leave like this? And then another reason is she turned and looked back because she didn’t believe God had destroyed the city. He did. Turned her to a pill of salt and God got Lot out. My friend, may I say this to you? That at the time of the rapture, it’ll take place before the great tribulation comes, before the judgment comes, because God will not let any of his saints, even those that are like Lot, The weakest saint will be taken out. If Lot made it and you have trusted Christ as your Savior, you’ll be sure one thing, you’re going out too. This is another marvelous example of the fact the church does not go through the great tribulation period. They’ve been justified by faith in Christ. And this man was justified. Now, will you notice? Verse 9, the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, out of testing. Now, somebody says, I believe the church is going through the great tribulation. I’d just like to say to you, God knows how to deliver his own. You may not know how, but God knows how. And he also knows how to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. Now, God knows the difference between the two. I don’t. The wheat and tares are growing together today. And he said to his own, you let them alone. Let them both grow together. I’m not worried about tares today. Oh, I must confess, I wish there weren’t so many of them. But wheat and tares are growing. And the Word of God is getting out today. This is a glorious day in which to live. One of these days, he’ll make the separation when he takes his own out of this world. So until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
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If we can help you further develop your knowledge of and love for God’s Word, then visit our online library of resources at ttb.org or call us at 1-865-BIBLE. Until tomorrow, this is Steve Schwetz for all of us at Through the Bible. We’re praying that God blesses you as you walk with Him today.
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